"According to Palm and Trost (2000), when Swedes were asked in 1947 'Do you believe in God?' 83% said yes, 9% said they didn't know, and 8% said no. " [Palm, Irving and Jan Trost. 2000. "Family and Religion in Sweden. " Pages 107-120 in Family, Religion, and Social Change in Diverse Societies, edited by Sharon Houseknecht and Jerry Pankhurst. New York, NY: Oxford University Press]

"According to Palm and Trost (2000), when Swedes were asked in 1947 'Do you believe in God?' 83% said yes, 9% said they didn't know, and 8% said no. In the early 1990s, in response to the same question, only 38% said yes, 16% didn't know, and 46% said they did not. " [Palm, Irving and Jan Trost. 2000. "Family and Religion in Sweden. " Pages 107-120 in Family, Religion, and Social Change in Diverse Societies, edited by Sharon Houseknecht and Jerry Pankhurst. New York, NY: Oxford University Press]

"According to Bruce (2002) and Gill et al (1998), survey data from the 1960s found that 79% of the British held a belief in God... " [Source: Bruce, Steve. 2002. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers]

"According to Bruce (2002) and Gill et al (1998), survey data from the 1960s found that 79% of the British held a belief in God, but this dropped down to 68% in surveys taken in the 1990s... " [Source: Bruce, Steve. 2002. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers]

"Shortly after the war, Gallup polls revealed that 94% of the public believed in God, a substantially larger share than in England, Holland, Sweden, Denmark or France. "

poll - believe in God

USA

-

95.00%

-

-

1953

Marty, Martin E. Pilgrims in Their Own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. (1984); pg. 425.

"Opinion surveys showed that the public regarded religion highly... Over 95% of the people told the polls that they believed in God, and most of them claimed belief in prayer, the Bible, heaven, the church. "

"Americans today are quite religious, if their answers to social surveys are any indication. Although almost all Americans--94%--believe in God or in a universal spirit, while only 4% explicitly deny the existence of such a being. "

poll - believe in God

USA

-

90.00%

-

-

1988

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1988); pg. 300.

"Upwards of 90% of the American population affirms some belief in the existence of God. Such affirmation scarcely answers the question of whether there has been, as some theorists suggest, 'a massive reinterpretation' of the nature of God. "

"In a 1989 survey the sociologist Steven M. Cohen asked a sample population of Jews about their belief in God and received skeptical responses from nearly one in five respondents; by contrast, in the general American population, over nine out of ten affirm a belief in God. "

"As the millennium approaches, the experiential, individualistic thread remarked so long ago by Emerson runs brightly through America's religious fabric. Among nations, only India is demonstrably more spiritual. Ninety-five percent of Americans say they believe in God. "

"Nor is the hotel industry intentionally discriminatory. It regards itself as faithfully assisting the 96% of the populace who profess belief in God with a volume of that seemingly deepens that faith. "

poll - believe in God

USA

-

95.00%

-

-

2000

*LINK* Gibson, David (RNS). "Is the New Christianity No Longer About 'We' and All About 'Me'? " in Salt Lake Tribune (15 Jan 2000).

"Yet religion flourishes. Surveys consistently put the level of Americans' belief in some higher power at close to 95 percent... "

poll - believe in God

world

5,760,000,000

96.00%

-

-

2000

Sawyer, Robert J. Calculating God. New York: Tor (2000); pg. 147.

"Of course, it's possible to enjoy the traditions of religion--the ceremonies, the ties with the past--without believing in God... But, in fact, there are millions of Jews who believe--really believe--in God (or G-d); indeed, secular Zionist Judaism was on the wane while formal observance was rising. And there are millions of Christians who believe in the holy threefer of, as one of my Catholic friends occasionally quipped, Big Daddy, Junior, and the Spook. And there are millions of Muslims who embraced the Qur'an as the revealed word of God.

Indeed, even here, at the dawn of the century following the one in which we'd discovered DNA and quantum physics and nuclear fission and in which we'd invented computers... ninety-six percent of the world's population still really believed in a supreme being--and the percentage was rising, not falling. "

"Finally, according to Norris and Inglehart (2004:90), the percentage of people believing in God over the past 50 years has declined by 33% in Sweden, 22% in the Netherlands, 20% in Australia, 19% in Norway, 18% in Denmark, 16.5% in Britain, 12% in Greece, 11% in Belgium, 7% in Canada, and 3% in Japan. " [Source: Norris, Pippa and Ronald Inglehart. 2004. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. New York, NY: Cambridge University Pres]

"First of all, the sheer numbers; with between 500,000,000 and 750,000,000 non-theists living on this planet today, any suggestion that belief in God is natural, inborn, or a result of how our brains are wired becomes difficult to sustain. Secondly, innate/neural theories of belief in God cannot explain the dramatically different rates of belief among similar countries... It is simply unsustainable to argue that these glaring differences in rates of atheism among these nations is due to different biological, neurological or other such brain-related properties. Rather, the differences are better explained by taking into account historical, cultural, economic, political, and sociological factors (Norris and Inglehart, 2004; Grontenhuis and Scheepers, 2001; Verweij, Ester, and Natua, 1997; Zuckerman, 2003; Bruce, 1999). " [Total world pop., 2005: 6,379,157,361 - 500,000,000 = 'theists']

"Thus, the picture is complicated, making definite predictions of the future growth or decline of atheism difficult. What is clear is that in certain societies, non-belief in God is definitely growing. While most people continue to maintain a firm belief in deities (especially in the most populous countries, there is clear evidence of secularization in many advanced industrial nations (Norris and Ingelhart, 2004; Bruce, 2002). Secularization is specifically evident in the empirically observable decline of belief in God within many western nations. "

"Between 500,000,000 and 750,000,000 humans currently do not believe in God... The nations with the highest degrees of organic atheism (atheism which is not state-enforced through totalitarian regimes but emerges naturally among free societies) include most of the nations of Europe, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. There also exist high degrees of atheism in Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Many former Soviet nations, such as Estonia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus also contain significant levels of atheism. However, atheism is virtually non-existent in much of the world, especially among the most populous nations of Africa, South America, the Middle East, and much of Asia... In many societies, particularly those in Europe, atheism is growing. However, throughout much of the rest of the world - particularly among the poorest nations with highest birth rates - atheism is barely discernible. " [World pop.: 6,379,157,361]

"God is Dead " wrote German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche in the late 19th century. Today, for the first time in history, most Germans believe him. According to a poll by Der Spiegel magazine, only 45% believe in God, and just a quarter in Jesus Christ.

"sampled population consists of persons aged 16 years and over from all federal electorates throughout Australia, excluding the Northern Territory... This poll is based on 2128 interviews conducted over the first two weekends of June 1983. "; Question: "DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER DEATH? "

"Only a minority of Europeans... believe in life after death: the percentage ranges from 4% in Italy to a mere 35% in Scandinavia; and in Japan only 18% profess this belief. In contrast, nearly 71% of Americans say they believe in life after death. "

"Only a minority of Europeans... believe in life after death: the percentage ranges from 4% in Italy to a mere 35% in Scandinavia; and in Japan only 18% profess this belief. In contrast, nearly 71% of Americans say they believe in life after death. "

"Only a minority of Europeans... believe in life after death: the percentage ranges from 4% in Italy to a mere 35% in Scandinavia; and in Japan only 18% profess this belief. In contrast, nearly 71% of Americans say they believe in life after death. "

Martin notes that a 1986 Gallup Poll found that 76% of people polled [in the UK] believed in a "God " and in an "Afterlife ", whilst 96% wished for the continuation of compulsory Relisious Studies in schools (notice the emphasis on the spiritual development of children in the National Curriculum).

poll - believe in life after death

USA

-

75.00%

-

-

1948

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1988). [Orig. source: Barnett, Lincoln. 1948. "God and the American People. " Ladies' Home Journal (November): 37, 230-234.]; pg. 17.

"In the same year [1948], a representative study of the nation conducted for the Ladies' Home Journal found that 90% of the public engaged in prayer, 86% regarded the Bible as the divinely inspired word of God, and three-quarters believed in the reality of life after death. "

"Only a minority of Europeans... believe in life after death: the percentage ranges from 4% in Italy to a mere 35% in Scandinavia; and in Japan only 18% profess this belief. In contrast, nearly 71% of Americans say they believe in life after death. "

poll - believe in life after death

USA

-

75.00%

-

-

1985

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1988); pg. 165.

"By the mid 1980s... Seven in ten said they believed in the divinity of Jesus, in life after death, and in heaven, all figures that had scarcely changed at all from the early 1950s. "

poll - believe in life after death

USA

-

77.00%

-

-

1989

*LINK* O'Reilly, Davis (Knight-Ridder). "More People Than Ever Believe in Life After Death " in Salt Lake Tribune, 23 Oct. 1999 (v. online).

"...82% of adult Americans today believe some aspect of them will endure beyond [death]; that's 5 percentage points higher than the 77% reported in every previous decade since pollster George Gallup began asking in the 1930s. "

"...a 1991 study by Andrew Greeley... Americans... 80% believe in the afterlife, 70% believe in the existence of heaven (compared with 57% who believe in the existence of hell)... "

poll - believe in life after death

USA

-

82.00%

-

-

1999

*LINK* O'Reilly, Davis (Knight-Ridder). "More People Than Ever Believe in Life After Death " in Salt Lake Tribune, 23 Oct. 1999 (v. online).

"More Americans probably believe in an afterlife than ever before in this century, according to a new study by the Survey Research Center at the University of California at Berkeley. Jewish belief in life after death has tripled in this century, from 19% among those born in the first decade to 74% among those born in the 1960s. There is little difference in belief between liberal and conservative Protestants; about 86% in every age group believe in an afterlife, and have done so for decades. Belief among those calling themselves Roman Catholic [is] 83%... Even among adults who claim no religious affiliation, belief has increased from 44% to 58% since the mid-1970s... 82% of adult Americans today believe some aspect of them will endure beyond their own big chill... The survey, whose findings will be published in the December issue of American Sociological Review, did not include U.S. Muslims or practitioners of Eastern religions. "

"...a poll released by CNN in 1990 estimated that 35% of all Americans beleived in reincarnation. If accurate, this means that roughly 35-40% million people in the U.S. believe in one of the central tenets of the New Age. "

"through the success of theosophical disciples such as Edgar Cayce, reincarnation reached a popular audience... a fact amply demonstrated in recent polls that show a high percentage of Ameicans (some 20 percent) have accepted the idea. "

poll - believe in reincarnation

USA

-

20.00%

-

-

1998

Newport, John P. The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview: Conflict and Dialogue, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan (1998); pg. 46.

"These impressions are reinforced by Gallup Poll statistics which indicate taht one out of five Americans believes in reincarnation, which is an essential concept of the New Age worldview. "

poll - believe in reincarnation

West, The

-

-

-

-

1981

Crim, Keith (ed.). The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions. San Francisco: Harper Collins (1989). Reprint; originally pub. as Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions, 1981; pg. 609.

"There seems to be a belief among some people in the West, apparently without any systemic religious foundation, in what may be called random reincarnation. This is part of the widespread emphasis on the occult and the uncanny. There is talk about persons having memories which cannot be explained without recourse to the notion that they are remembering some previous existence. This prior life may have taken place in fairly recent history, or it may go back to antiquity or even to prehistory. But there does not seem to be any organized philosophy behind this belief. "

"sampled population consists of persons aged 16 years and over from all federal electorates throughout Australia, excluding the Northern Territory... This poll is based on 2128 interviews conducted over the first two weekends of June 1983. "; Question: "DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL? "

"A Harris poll taken in July 1994... Of the four in five Americans who described themselves as Christians, 85% believed in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Even 52 percent of the non-Christians surveyed believed in the Resurrection! "

"A 1996 Newsweek poll confirmed that nearly half of Americans believe UFOs are real and that the government has covered up the evidence, & 29% of the population is convinced we've already made contact with ETs. "

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1988); pg. 165.

"...despite the fact that the majority of the public believed in the divinity of Jesus, considerably fewer now believed it necessary to accept Jesus in order to be saved (38% in 1981, compared with 51% in 1964). "

poll - believe it necessary to accept Jesus to be saved

USA

-

38.00%

-

-

1981

Wuthnow, Robert. The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (1988); pg. 165.

"...despite the fact that the majority of the public believed in the divinity of Jesus, considerably fewer now believed it necessary to accept Jesus in order to be saved (38% in 1981, compared with 51% in 1964). "

"The U.S. is overwhelmingly Christian, with 80% in the surveys saying that they believe that Jesus Christ was divine. Further, 45% stated a belief that personal faith in Christ is the only way to reach heaven (Christianity Today, 1979). "

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